


tip my cap to the raging sea

by growlery



Series: pirate!raven, mermaid!bellamy [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirates of the Caribbean Fusion, F/M, Merpeople, Past Finn Collins/Raven Reyes, Pirates, raven is some combination of elizabeth/will/jack ok just go with it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-09 08:44:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5532980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/growlery/pseuds/growlery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raven has seen the walking dead and Davy Jones himself; merfolk really shouldn't be much more of a stretch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tip my cap to the raging sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pe_bcna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pe_bcna/gifts).



> for andybergs as part of the ravenbell secret santa exchange. i started two of these, one with mermaid!bellamy and one with mermaid!raven, because i was so enchanted by both possibilities. the latter may yet be posted, but for now, merry holidays, andybergs! i hope you like this.

Little has changed since Raven got a ship of her own. She has a crew who answer to her, now, but she's still the one scaling the rigging in the middle of a storm, securing the sails to the masts because her ship is not going down, it is _not_. It's a bit harder with her leg fucked up from the lasting damage of Murphy's one goddamn shot, but it just slows her down. It's not going to stop her. 

The ship abruptly lurches sideways. Raven nearly goes flying, the rope whipping through the circles of her fists. 

"Harper!" she yells, a reprimand, and gets back, "I'm giving her all she's got, Captain!"

Raven just shakes her head hard, grinning despite herself. Her fucking crew, seriously. 

The storm breaks, eventually. When it does, there's land in sight, and a slow, weary cheer goes up around Raven's crew. 

"We did it, guys," she says, with a tired laugh of her own, "we made it."

Raven sends Monty out to investigate. There's no reason to think that there's anything to worry about, but old habits die hard, and she doesn't want to risk her whole crew facing an ambush, not on their first treasure hunt. 

But Monty disappears over the horizon, into the slowly clearing fog, and doesn't reappear when expected. Raven gives it another few minutes, just in case, just to be sure, and then she turns back to her anxious crew. 

"Monroe, with me," she says, "we're getting our first mate back."

She rows down to the island, Monroe keeping point. Raven's hackles are raised, prepared for anything. 

Or, well, nearly anything. 

"Uh," Monroe says, not lowering her gun, "Captain?"

Raven shakes her head, unsure at what, exactly. The boat she sent Monty out in is moored on the beach, and Monty himself is sitting inside it, looking rather spectacularly unharmed as he talks, visibly excited, to two people floating in the water in front of him. 

Except they're not exactly people. 

Raven has seen the walking dead and Davy Jones himself; merfolk really shouldn't be much more of a stretch. But something in her brain refuses to compute the tails attached to the human-looking bodies, gets stuck somewhere around their bellies and keeps skipping. 

"Monty," she barks, and the three of them turn to look at her, at her boat floating a few yards away from them. Monty at least has the decency to look sheepish. "What the fuck?"

"They rescued me," Monty says, in explanation, and the paler one makes a noise like a snort. He has gills. There are gills under his ribs, just visible where they're carefully submerged under the clear sea. 

"It was Miller's fault you nearly drowned in the first place. I'm Bellamy," he says, to Raven, "and this is Miller. We were swimming in the sea underneath your friend's boat, but Miller got too close and it capsized."

"They brought me to shore and resuscitated me," Monty says. He's looking at Miller with something soft and wondrous in his eyes, and Raven tries not to outwardly despair. She's dealt with worse than a crewmate being glamoured by merfolk. She can handle this. 

"Monty," Raven says, as calmly as she can manage, "get away from them."

Monty frowns. "Why? They aren't going to hurt me."

"Can you guarantee that? Because I can't, and I can't take the risk."

"If we were going to hurt him," Bellamy says, "don't you think we would have done it already? We could've just let him drown." He gives her a level look, warmth gone from his face. "I think we're the ones who should be worried. You're trespassing in our waters, after all."

Raven sees Miller roll his eyes, but he doesn't say anything. (Later, he will tell her that they don't get territorial like that, generally; it's just an act Bellamy puts on for the particularly pushy-looking humans.)

"We're just passing through," Raven lies, smiling winningly, and Bellamy says, "You're looking for the lost treasure of Angharad, and you won't find it."

"It's lost," Miller says, somewhat unnecessarily. Raven isn't deterred. 

"Everybody else said the same thing," she says. "We're going to find it."

Bellamy raises his eyebrows – why do merfolk even need eyebrows? – but doesn't say anything. Monty's looking between them like he isn't entirely sure what's going on. 

"Monroe," Raven says, turning to her, "row back to the ship and tell Harper to bring her in. We're going investigating."

*

"I can't believe you got yourself glamoured," Raven hisses, as soon as they're out of earshot of the beach. "We have a job to do, here."

Monty looks unrepentant. "I'm not," he says. "They're just... nice."

Nice, Raven thinks, is not what she understood of merfolk from the stories Finn's mother used to tell them. Her heart twinges at the thought of Finn, like always, but it's a wistful sort of ache instead of the all-encompassing grief she had got used to. She's not sure how to feel about that. 

"Could've fooled me," Raven says, "the way you were making eyes at that Miller. Did he give you mouth-to-mouth, is that it?"

"You can't talk," Monty retorts, "the way you and Bellamy were carrying on."

"I don't know what you mean," Raven says, and then, "Isn't there supposed to be a clearing around here?"

Monty looks unimpressed with her clunky change of subject, but he looks down at his copy of the map, furrows up his face. "Are we lost?"

"We're not lost," Raven says, and then glances at her compass to make sure. "The map must be wrong."

"The map's not wrong," comes Bellamy's voice from behind them, "the treasure's just lost."

Raven does not jump, because that would be undignified, but Monty totally does. 

"How," he says, breathless. Raven has similar questions. Bellamy's tail has vanished, and in its place are legs, torn trousers. He didn't see fit to put on a shirt, which Raven does not appreciate. 

"Magic," Bellamy says, very seriously, and Raven huffs a breath. 

"How can the map not be wrong? There shouldn't be trees here and, yet, trees there are."

"Magic," Bellamy repeats, and Raven heaves an impatient sigh. 

"The treasure's here," she tells him, "and we're going to find it, so if you're not going to be helpful, would you kindly fuck off?"

"Your compass is broken," Bellamy tells her. 

"There you go, continuing to be helpful," she mutters. To Monty, she says, "We should turn left here."

"No, you shouldn't," Bellamy says, but he follows them anyway. "What makes you think it's even on this island?"

"Magic," Raven says, smiling blandly at him. "Why are _you_ even here?"

Bellamy shrugs. "No one's ever got this close before," he says, and Raven is full of questions, about merfolk, how much they see of humans, how much they know. She bites her tongue. "I want to see if you can do it."

"If anyone can, it's Raven," Monty says, and Raven flushes at the honesty in his voice. It's humbling, how much her crew trust her. She's got them chasing a legend, a myth, something they have no good reason to believe even exists, and every last one of them followed her all the way here, will follow her to the end. 

"Hell yeah, I can," she says. Bellamy probably thinks she's arrogant, holds herself in far too high an esteem, but she doesn't care. He doesn't know anything about her. "What about you? You seem to know an awful lot about it. Why haven't you found the treasure?"

Bellamy glances at her. He doesn't look surprised at the question, exactly, but his brow is furrowed. "I've never gone looking," he says. 

"Is it cursed?" Monty asks, casting a worried look at Raven. They hadn't heard about a curse, and Raven had made sure they'd done their research, but she's not willing to rule out the possibility that she's wrong. It's been known to happen. Like, once. 

(Finn doesn't count; no matter how badly things ended, he was family. She cannot, _will not_ , see what happened between them as a mistake.)

"Not that I know of. But human treasure is more trouble than it's worth, regardless."

"Not this treasure," Raven says, and she expects Bellamy to retort, but he just looks at her, searching her face. She's not sure what he's looking for, but he looks away after a moment, nodding, and Raven's not sure why it feels like she's passed some kind of test, but it does. 

"So Miller didn't come with you," Monty says, and as subject changes go, it's pretty clunky. Bellamy looks amused, and he glances back over at her, raising his eyebrows. Raven bites her lip. She won't share this with him. 

"He left when the rest of your crew arrived," Bellamy says. "He doesn't really like humans."

"Oh," Monty says, visibly disappointed.

"Neither do I," Bellamy adds, glancing at Raven. "It's sort of a mer thing."

"You should also feel free to leave," Raven tells him, "you know, whenever you feel the-" Bellamy throws out an arm, holding her back. Raven glares at him. "Get the _fuck_ off me."

"You were about to walk into a trap," Bellamy says, and Raven is about to snap at him, but then there's a yelp, and her head whips around to see Monty being dragged into the air by one of his legs. "I told you."

"You couldn't have helped Monty too?" Raven retorts, but when she looks back at the trap Monty's been caught in, she frowns. "Wait a minute. This isn't supposed to be here."

Bellamy looks unimpressed. "Because traps are always marked on public-domain maps."

She meant the trees Monty is now hanging between, a very specific formation that she's sure she's seen before. Following her hunch, she scans the map. She finds what she's looking for in seconds. 

"I knew it," she says, triumphant. "The map's not wrong. It's reversed."

"That's really great," Monty calls out, "but can somebody get me down from here?"

*

They find the treasure. 

Or, well, they find the place where the treasure is buried, but that's enough for Raven. 

"I _told you_ ," she says to Bellamy, but she can't manage smugness, can't be anything but giddy and gleeful, and Bellamy's answering smile is softer than she would expect. 

"It isn't found yet," he says, and Raven rolls her eyes, but she can't stop herself smiling, too. 

"So we find it," Monty says, looking as exhilarated as Raven feels. "What's the plan, Captain?"

"Fetch the others," she says. She could just send up a flare, but she doesn't want to risk alerting others to their presence here. They doubled back on themselves more than once, went round in circles; the direct route there and back should only take twenty minutes or so. She's waited this long. She can wait another twenty minutes. "Bring the shovels."

"Why didn't you bring the shovels?" Bellamy asks, but like he's curious, not like he's trying to be critical. 

Raven shrugs. "No point going to all the effort if it wasn't even here. And I'm not exactly good for digging, anyway."

She gestures disdainfully to her leg, the brace around her knee. It's not like she can't do it, but she's slow, painfully so, and it's much less humiliating for her to just delegate the task. 

Monty nods at her. "I'll be right back," he says, and pulls her into a quick hug before he disappears into the trees. 

Raven finds a tree stump to perch on, to take off her brace and massage the leg beneath it. She'd been ignoring it, pushing through until they reached their goal, but acknowledging her leg was there just reminded her how much it was hurting. 

Bellamy comes to sit next to her, folding himself up on the ground. Raven didn't realise he hadn't been at ease until she sees him suddenly comfortable in his own skin, and she wonders if it's weird for him, having legs where he expects a tail. 

He looks up suddenly, catches her staring at his lower body. She doesn't look away, unselfconscious, and Bellamy's eyes flick to her own legs, settling somewhere suspiciously close to her brace. He glances up at her, a clear question in his eyes. Nothing makes her answer except an inexplicable desire to do so. 

"Asshole tried to stage a mutiny, framed me for it. It didn't work, but I still got marooned with him." She strokes over her leg, too gentle to really do anything. "He's a lousy shot."

"But you're a captain," Bellamy says, frowning, "aren't you?"

"I wasn't born that way," Raven says, and there's that twinge again. "I started off as a cabin girl. Well, actually, I started off as a stowaway, but that was Finn's fault for trying to leave me behind."

"Finn?" Bellamy asks, but lessening twinge or not, that isn't a question Raven wants to answer. 

"You've already had a question," she says, "it's my turn."

Bellamy leans back, propping himself up by his knuckles. "Ask away," he says. "I'm surprised you haven't already. Monty was full of questions."

"Monty doesn't know when to shut up," Raven says, but fondly. She thinks for a second, sorting through everything she knows, or at least thinks she knows, about merfolk. She's still mentally processing the reality of it, honestly. "Do you miss the sea," she asks, eventually, "when you're on land?"

Bellamy holds her gaze, and Raven tries not to notice how nice his eyes are, a deep, warm brown that seems as bottomless as the sea in question. 

"Do you?"

"Oi," she says, pointing a finger at him, "my question."

"Of course I do," Bellamy says. "I don't think I'll ever get used to breathing through lungs."

"Huh," Raven says, cocking her head, "so the transformation isn't just your legs, then?"

"Oi," Bellamy mimicks, smirking, "you've already had your question."

"Finn was the one who told me about Angharad. We were always going to find the treasure together. He's dead," Raven says before Bellamy can ask, exposing the wound all at once. Bellamy's face creases, like sympathy, and Raven has to look away from it. "So, lungs?"

"It's not like I have gills any more," Bellamy says, gesturing at his side. Raven takes the invitation to glance down and, sure enough, the skin is smooth where before it had gaped. 

"Can I?" she asks, and Bellamy nods. She splays her fingers over his side, pressing lightly down, but there's nothing beneath it but muscle. "That's impossible."

Bellamy grins. Raven takes her hand off his bare skin. "Doubt it's the strangest thing you've ever seen."

"Doesn't even rate in the top five," Raven agrees. "Any more questions?"

"So many," Bellamy says easily, and Raven prepares herself, but he doesn't say anything else, and they sit in strangely companionable silence until her crew joins them. 

Miller is with them, standing at the front talking quietly with Monty, and when Raven gives them both an arch look, Miller smiles winningly and says, "All hands on deck," and Raven just shakes her head. She catches Bellamy's eye, only half-unwilling. Maybe she can share this with him, after all. 

With all of them digging except Bellamy and Raven, they make quick work of the clearing. They dig, and dig, and dig, until somebody hits solid wood instead of dirt, and shouts. 

Raven is there as quickly as her legs will carry her, everyone else right behind her. Maya stands back, flushed and pleased, and when Raven doesn't move, says, "Well? Aren't you going to open it?"

"You found it," Raven says, voice softer than she means it to be. "It's your shot."

Maya grins, so wide it makes Raven's heart hurt. "Aye, Captain," she says, and leans down to open the chest.

**Author's Note:**

> this has nothing to do with this fic, really, but i had a dream once about a mermaid who owned an underwater bookshop (presumably the books were made of special waterproof paper; dream science is weird, anyway) and i'm not saying that bellamy is that mermaid, but i'm not saying he's _not_ either.


End file.
